WASHINGTON, May 1, 2014 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Encapsulife, Inc., a global leader to cure for diabetes by employing NASA-derivative technologies, today announced the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued to Encapsulife, Patent US 8,673,294 -- "Immunoisolation Patch System For Cellular Transplantation." The USPTO patent applies broadly to endocrine and neurological disorders, more narrowly to pancreatic disorders (diabetes), and specifically validates the efficacy of Encapsulife/Wang's technologies to reverse diabetes automatically and biologically, without using harmful immune-suppression drugs.

Dr. Taylor Wang, founder of Encapsulife, made the formative scientific observations for his encapsulation technologies as an astronaut-scientist during the 1985 Shuttle Mission STS-151/Skylab 3. Dr. Wang said, "Without NASA's Shuttle, Skylab 3, and early follow-on micro-gravity research support, none of our bio-medical advances, with promise to provide enormous medical benefits to mankind, would have come to pass. And I was pleased to tell this to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week."

- "Recent research to cure diabetes has gravitated toward pancreatic islet transplantation. But a major challenge is the diabetic's immune system, which rejects donor islet cells;

- Wang's bio-artificial pancreas, contains thousands of encapsulated pancreatic islet cells from a donor (human, porcine, human cloned, or human stem-cell derivative), that survive and function to produce insulin automatically, when stimulated by glucose in the diabetic's blood stream -- without being rejected by the diabetic's immune system;

- Wang's bio-artificial pancreas has proven successful as a simple sub-cutaneous implant in dogs and has been successful in primates, using human islets. No invasive transplant surgery or harmful immune-suppression drugs are used;

- The Wang's success is attributed to novel multi-layer immunoisolation technology -- multiple microscopic barrier-capsules around the islet cells -- which are organized in special geometric shapes and implanted under the skin. This allows:

1. Passage of glucose and nutrients INTO the capsule to sustain living pancreatic islet cells and stimulate insulin-production;

2. Passage of insulin, back OUT across the capsule wall(s) to enable proper metabolism and reverse diabetes, while also;

3. Blocking the body's immune cells, that would destroy the transplanted tissue islet cells." Geoffrey Mason, patent expert and CEO of FastPatentPartner commented, "It is unusual for the Patent and Trademark Office to include an efficacy statement such as the one in the new Encapsulife patent. It shows the USPTO believes the invention will work."

Encapsulife now will begin the process for FDA human trials to provide an automatic functional cure for diabetes. Encapsulife's Gibson said, "Having filed for this patent five years ago, it is a pleasant coincidence that the patent grant arrives in-synch with Dr. Wang's 2013 successes using the patch technology to reverse diabetes in primate trails -- done in collaboration with Dr. James Markmann, Chief of Transplantation Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.

"Gibson continued, "It is also an important timing note that there continues to be excellent progress in parallel with development of Wang's bio-artificial pancreas, to develop scalable sources of islets. Recent progress includes islet cloning, adult brown fat stem cell programming to create islet cells, and use of porcine islets. For transplantation and a functional cure, new islets from any of these sources, would require immune-protection -- and that technology is at hand. With all this encouraging news our development efforts will now go into high gear. We now must move urgently to get this technology into human trials and to the victims of diabetes."

Encapsulife, Inc. founded in 1998, is a small, closely-held, private Delaware corporation with a substantial patent portfolio, unique and peer-reviewed research, passionate and talented leadership, and products and processes focused on encapsulating and transplanting living islet cells to reverse diabetes automatically without use of immunosuppression drugs or external mechanical devices. Dr. Wang's research has been supported by NASA, Vanderbilt University, Helmsley Trust, Ronald McDonald Children's Charities, JDRF, Evans-Gilruth Foundation, The Chauncey and Marion D. McCormick Family Foundation, New Generation Foundation and its "Squash Diabetes" Campaign, and private donors.